经济学人：沦为屎山的珠穆朗玛峰 |双语精读

原文音频

Mount Everest

A mountain of waste

Tourism causes unsavory problems at 18.000 feet

“Take only memories, leave only footprints” is more than a clichéd hiking motto at the Sagarmatha National Park in Nepal . The large box of rocks sitting next to the metal detector at the local airport is a testament to that: tourists departing from Mount Everest have to dispose of material they have collected before stepping onto the dauntingly short runway. Fulfilling the second half of this mantra , however, is harder. Tens of thousands of tourists leave more than just footprints. They have created a mountain of faeces , which is becoming an environmental problem.

• 💡 作者以 一句大家耳熟能详的环保标语“只带走回忆，只留下脚印”开篇。接下来分别阐述珠峰的游客实际上带走了什么，留下了什么。最后一句引出全文主题——满山的粪便，带来了环境问题。

• clichéd [ˈkliːʃeɪd] 来自于名词 cliché “陈词滥调，老生常谈，老套” (a comment that is very often made and is therefore not original and not interesting)

• motto [ˈmɒtəʊ] n. a short sentence or phrase giving a rule on how to behave, which expresses the aims or beliefs of a person, school, or institution 箴言，格言，座右铭 我们平时常说的校训就可以说： a school motto ， motto 也可以指个人的座右铭，比如 My motto is "Work hard, play hard".

• the Sagarmatha National Park 萨加玛塔国家公园，位于尼泊尔喜马拉雅山区，坐落在珠穆朗玛峰南坡。

• Nepal [nəˈpɔːl] 尼泊尔

• the metal detector 指我们过安检时要通过的金属探测器。

• be a testament to sth proving or showing very clearly that something exists or is true 是 … 的证据，是 … 的证明 常见的同义表达还有 attest to sth, testify to sth, bear witness to sth 等等。

• depart (from sth) 指“从 … 离开”，相当于 leave sth ，比如 We depart from Shanghai’s Pudong Airport at ten o’clock tonight. 我们今晚 10 点从希思罗机场启程。

• dispose of sth 指“丢掉；清除；处理”，类似于 throw sth away, get rid of sth, do away with sth, discard sth。

• dauntingly 本义是“令人畏惧地，令人胆怯地”，来自于形容词 daunting 。在这里 dauntingly 更像是一个程度副词，指“非常，极其”， dauntingly short runway 即“特别短的通道，短得可怕的通道”

• 我们在 Plan for five careers in a lifetime 这篇文章讲过 daunting ，原文是 Changing careers is difficult, lonely, daunting and expensive. 改行是困难的、孤独的、让人畏惧的，也是代价高昂的。

• this mantra 指段首引用的 “Take only memories, leave only footprints” 这句话，是 a clichéd hiking motto 的同义替换。 [同义替换]

• mantra [ˈmæn.trə] 和 cliché 一样，指“老话，口头禅” (a word or phrase representing a rule or principle which someone often uses, but which other people often find annoying or boring)

• a mountain of sth/ mountains of sth 本来就有“大堆某物 ; 大量某物”的意思，比如我有大量的工作要处理： I have a mountain of work to deal with. a mountain of faeces 用在本文中十分精妙，同时运用了 mountain 字面义“山” 和引申义“大量的”，可译为“满山的粪便”。

• faeces [ˈfiː.siːz] n. solid waste material from the bowels 粪便

In 2017, 648 people reached Everest’s summit, more than seven times the number two decades ago. Many more make it to base camp. Currently, toilet waste is carried and dumped into pits near the town of Gorakshep, an hour’s walk down the mountain. The amount of waste is increasing fast, says Budhi Bahadur Sarkhi, a porter who has been carrying poo from base camp to these pits for 12 years. When Mr Sarkhi started there were seven porters hired for the job. Now there are 30.

• 💡 本段 作者用两个数据变化侧面说明人类粪便正在迅速增加：登顶珠峰的人数以及挑粪背夫的人数。这段话的逻辑是这样：因为登顶珠峰和到达大本营的人数增加，自然产生的人类粪便更多，又因为目前需要把人类粪便从大本营扛到小镇上处理，挑粪的背夫数量也就随之增加了。

• make it (to sth) 相当于 be successful at sth ，指“成功到达，成功进入，获得成功”。比如当你考上了理想的大学，你就可以兴奋地说：I made it! 如果你考上了北京大学，那可以说I made it to Peking university!

• 我们在 How to win the World Cup 中也遇到过两次： 1. Billions of fans will nonetheless pour their hopes into the World Cup, which begins in Russia on June 14th. Many people will join in even if their countries have not made it to the competition. 不过，数十亿球迷依然对今天在俄罗斯揭幕的世界杯满怀希望。即使自己的国家并未入围，许多人仍会观战。

• 2. Th e women’s contest has only ever been won by democracies (America, Germany, Japan and Norway), though China once made it to the final. 至于女足世界杯，尽管中国曾打入决赛，但最后夺冠的都是民主国家（美国、德国、日本和挪威）。

• base camp 指登山者的扎营基地，登山大本营 (a place where food and general supplies are kept, especially for people climbing a mountain)

• pit 本义是“地面的坑、洼”，在文中具体指扔垃圾的坑道。

• porter n.[C] someone whose job is to carry people’s bags at railway stations, airports etc 搬运工，行李员，脚夫

Dumping sites are filling up quickly, and the run-off is infiltrating the region’s water channels, some of which feed into wells that supply drinking water. When tests were done at nine water sources in the region, seven were contaminated with significant levels of E. coli. The presence of human by-products in the water, like nicotine and sunscreen, suggests that the contamination came from human faeces, rather than that of the many local yaks .

• 💡 本段阐述人类粪便带来的环境问题——水污染。

• dumping sites 垃圾场，在本文中指上一段提到的pits(垃圾坑道)。

• run-off n.[U] Run-off is rainwater that forms a stream rather than being absorbed by the ground. 径流，溢流，指流入河流中的雨水

• fill up (with sth) 指“充满，装满（某物）” (if a container or place fills up, or if you fill it up, it becomes full) ，比如“我的眼里噙满泪水”： My eyes are filled up with tears.

• infiltrate [ˈɪnfɪltreɪt] v. to pass slowly into sth 渗入；渗透 ◇ Only a small amount of the rainwater actually infiltrates into the soil. 实际上只有少量雨水渗进了土壤。

• be contaminated with sth 被 … 污染，弄脏 [VOA] Over half a century of armed conflict has left swaths of land contaminated with unexploded ordnance . 在过去的半个世纪，武装冲突使大片土地受到未爆炸弹药的污染。

• E. coli n.[U] a type of bacteria that lives inside humans and some animals, some forms of which can cause food poisoning 大肠杆菌

• by-product n. something additional that is produced during a natural or industrial process 副产品

• by-product 也可以指“副作用，意外结果” (a thing that happens, often unexpectedly, as the result of sth else) ，相当 于side effect，比如失业带来的一大恶果是犯罪率上升：One of the by-products of unemployment is an increase in crime.

• yak [jæk] n. an animal of central Asia that looks like a cow with long hair 牦牛

One innovative solution could help . The Mount Everest Biogas Project, led by two mountaineers, hopes to install a biogas reactor in Gorakshep at the start of next year. All of the faeces from base camp would then be converted into two by-products: fertiliser and methane gas , possibly for cooking. In which case the mountain would be a little less brown and a little more green.

• 💡 本段介绍一个创新的解决方案——珠峰沼气项目。

• help 是一个非常好用的小词，可用来表示“某事有用有好处，起作用”，比如《经济学人》一篇讲自杀率的文章提到： Why are these people less likely to take their own lives? Urbanization and greater freedom have helped. 再举几个否定的例子，比如“哭是没有用的” Crying does not help. “抱怨是没有用的” Complaining do es not help . [写作推荐]

• biogas n.[U] gas, especially methane, that is produced by dead plants and that can be burned to produce heat 沼气

• methane gas a gas without colour or smell, that burns easily and is used as fuel. Natural gas consists mainly of methane. 甲烷；沼气甲烷；沼气

• which 是个关系代词，在引导非限制性定语从句时既可以指代前面某个部分也可以指代整句话。 which 还可以跳跃到下一句，指代前一句的全部内容，这也是外刊经常使用的句间衔接的方法。比如本文 in which case 中的 which 指代就是前一句 All of the faeces from base camp would then be converted into two by-products: fertiliser and methane gas, possibly for cooking. 再比如 ： ◇ Some say we must accept the proposal. To which our response should be the following.. . 人说我们应该接受那个建议。对此，我们的应该作如下回答 … 以后大家再遇到 which 在句首又不是疑问词的句子，就要看看这个 which 是不是指代上一句话。